US-Iran standoff: who are the key actors driving the crisis?

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March 1, 2026

US-Iran crisis: who are the main players? — US President Donald Trump and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu (file image)

When Swords and Speeches Collide: Inside a Crisis That Has the Region Holding Its Breath

There are nights in cities where the air changes pitch—something tightens in the throat of a place. In Tehran that night, it tasted of diesel, cardamom tea gone cold, and the metallic hum of distant aircraft. At the same time, across the Mediterranean, alarm rooms lit up in Tel Aviv and Washington. Words that had been shouting at one another for years—sanctions, enrichment, regime change, deterrence—suddenly found their way into missiles and radio broadcasts.

This is not a story that begins with a single bullet or a single speech. It is an entanglement of history, ambition, fear and grief. To make sense of it, you have to meet the people at the center of the storm and the figures who steer it from the high towers of power.

The Players on a Squeezed Chessboard

Below are the principal actors in a crisis that has global reverberations. They are as much personalities as policies—each carrying a weight of stories, resentments, and a distinct appetite for risk.

Donald Trump — the dealmaker who doubled down

For years the former New York businessman turned political outsider cultivated the image of a peacemaker. Yet on Iran he favored pressure. His “maximum pressure” campaign—symbolized by the 2018 U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear accord—aimed to squeeze Tehran back to the negotiating table by choking its oil revenues and financial links.

“We want a peaceful outcome,” a U.S. official in a Washington think tank told me. “But we also want to make sure Iran cannot threaten our allies. That’s where ‘very hard’ rhetoric becomes policy.”

And rhetoric matters. When leaders publicly warn of heavy responses to the killing of protesters or to moves toward a weaponized nuclear program, those warnings become commitments or provocations, depending on who reads them. In this crisis, the United States’ posture combined threats with renewed diplomatic channels—talks that moved fitfully against a backdrop of escalating tension.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — the keeper of the revolutionary flame

At the top of Iran’s state sits a figure who has watched and shaped the Islamic Republic for decades. Ascending to the supreme leadership in 1989, he has been the final arbiter of foreign and domestic strategy, endorsing uranium enrichment as a sovereign project and overseeing the expansion of Iran’s regional footprint—from Beirut to Baghdad, from Damascus to Sana’a.

“We will not bow to pressure from abroad,” declared a cleric close to the leadership in a private briefing. “Our resistance is as much ideological as strategic.”

Khamenei’s calculus has been wary of Western intentions and skeptical of deals that might, in his view, leave the revolutionary core vulnerable. When Iranian diplomats reopened talks that many hoped would unfreeze relations, he cautioned patience and guarded expectations—signaling that for him, concessions are a fast road to weakness.

Benjamin Netanyahu — Israel’s unblinking sentinel

For decades, Israel’s leaders have viewed Iran’s nuclear trajectory as an existential problem. Benjamin Netanyahu has made it a political crusade as well as a national security priority—publicly urging action when he judged diplomacy insufficient and addressing the Iranian people directly at times, hoping to peel away domestic support for Tehran’s rulers.

“We will not allow a regime committed to our destruction to acquire the means to carry out that threat,” an Israeli defense analyst said. “For them, pre-emption is not aggression—it’s survival.”

That calculus has fed into a sharpened Israeli posture: a willingness to act alone or in concert with allies if it judges the risk of inaction to be greater than the fallout of strikes.

Reza Pahlavi — the symbol and the shadow of a bygone era

Outside Iran, in a world of exile politics and diaspora social media, the name Reza Pahlavi carries a charged mixture of nostalgia and controversy. The eldest son of Iran’s last monarch has positioned himself as a figure around whom anti-regime sentiment can coalesce. He has not set foot in the country since the revolution, but his image and slogans—”Pahlavi will return”—echoed in recent street protests.

“People chant what gives them hope,” said an Iranian-American activist in Tehran. “Sometimes that’s monarchy, sometimes it’s a new republic. What matters is people want an end to oppression.”

To many inside Iran, however, Pahlavi’s legacy is complicated; he is both a rallying point and a reminder of another era that included its own abuses and inequities.

Mohammed bin Salman — Riyadh’s pragmatic architect

The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who rose to eminence in 2017, views a stable neighborhood as essential to his kingdom’s grand economic transformation. For Riyadh, a severely destabilized Iran could mean proxy escalation across the Gulf, jeopardizing oil lifelines and the broader commercial re-opening Riyadh has been chasing.

“We do not want the region to fall into chaos that deprives our people of jobs and prospects,” a Gulf diplomat told me. “A weakened Iran is not the same as a peaceful Iran.”

In 2023, Saudi Arabia and Iran undertook a cautious rapprochement brokered by a third power—an acknowledgment that, for Gulf monarchies, the price of perpetual confrontation was becoming too high.

On the Ground: Voices That Turn Headlines into Human Stories

Walk through Tehran’s Grand Bazaar and the headlines feel remote. You meet a woman threading pearls into a necklace who worries about her son’s future. You find a tea vendor who says, “We fear war. We have seen too many funerals.” And at a university coffee shop, a student shrugs: “We want reform, but we do not want to become a battleground.”

A shopkeeper in Isfahan described the calculus many families face: “If the border flares, nobody cares about our small shops. Food prices swell. People disappear overnight.”

These are not abstractions. Iran is home to roughly 85–86 million people. Years of sanctions and mismanagement have strained the economy, with high inflation eroding wages and sending many young Iranians abroad in search of opportunities. Protests—large and small—have rippled through cities in recent years, demanding an end to repression and a better life.

What Does This Mean for the World?

Ask yourself: when a regional confrontation escalates between nuclear-capable states and their proxies, who gets to call for caution? Who pays the price? The answers are rarely tidy.

This crisis lays bare broader themes: the limits of pressure versus diplomacy, the moral quandaries of supporting uprisings abroad, and the blunt reality that the cheapest path to stability is often the hardest to achieve politically.

Strategists warn of a cascade effect—attacks that invite retaliation, which invites deeper involvement by outside powers, which invites regional fragmentation. Humanitarian organizations worry about civilian casualties and refugees. Economists watch oil markets; traders watch every flare-up for signs of supply disruption.

“The fundamentals are simple and terrifying,” said a regional security scholar. “Once kinetic operations begin, control is partial and uncertainty rules.”

Where Do We Go From Here?

We could harden into camps and wait for the next round of speeches and missiles. Or we could treat this as an invitation to ask deeper questions: How do societies build resilience without resorting to repression? How do international actors balance deterrence with diplomacy? And perhaps most urgently—how do the voices of ordinary people reclaim the narrative?

In the bazaar, a vendor folded his hands over a steaming cup and said, softly: “We tire of being the stage on which others fight. Let us live our lives.” It was a plea, and a map. It asked us to imagine a future where power is not the only language spoken at midnight.

As the crisis unfolds, the world will be watching—because the choices made in the halls of power ripple down narrow alleys and into kitchens. That is the human cost. That is the human stake.

Life amid relentless war becomes ordinary for residents of Kharkiv, Ukraine

By

hanad

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March 1, 2026

Living with war is the new normal in Ukraine's Kharkiv — A section of a block of flats destroyed by a Russian glide bomb in 2023

Morning sirens and steaming coffee: life on the edge in Kharkiv

I woke to the skittering trill of an air-raid alert the way some people wake to birdsong — a reflex rather than panic. Outside, Kharkiv was a picture of brittle normality: buses lumbering past, trams gliding over snow-rimmed tracks, a line of people at a bakery steam-wreathed and patient.

For a city that has been within earshot of active combat for four years, there is a curious choreography to daily life. The siren pierces the town; heads tilt toward the sky; then, almost as casually, the conversation resumes and the queue inches forward. How do you reconcile the cadence of small comforts with the drumbeat of war?

Where the frontline breathes

Traveling north from the center, the terrain shifts and the city’s scarred edge arrives: a motorway where construction crews unspool nets like fishermen casting for a strange, modern catch. “We’re just fishermen with rivets and steel,” one of them said with a half-grin as he looped wire through an anti-drone curtain.

The nets are practical poetry. Since the year began, crews said, they had strung roughly 18 kilometres of barrier along arterial roads moving outward from the border. The work is a blunt reply to a technological problem: in recent months Russian forces tried a fibre-optic guidance trick — a wafer-thin cable trailing a drone to avoid electronic jamming — and the city answered with more nets and new tactics.

Kharkiv’s proximity to the front is sobering. By road it’s only about 30 kilometres to the north; across flat farmland, maybe 20. At night, anti-aircraft tracers and the distant thump of Ukrainian air defenses are as much a part of the soundscape as shop shutters and distant laughter.

Damage counted in buildings and in stories

The toll is not abstract. Some 13,000 buildings in Kharkiv have been damaged or destroyed since the invasion escalated in 2022. In the chaotic months of the first wave, more than 600 residents were killed by shelling within the first three months alone, a stat that reads like a headline but feels like a ghost in the room when you stand beneath a shattered balcony.

We went to Saltivskyi, a northern district that wears its wounds plainly. A 14-storey block stood with a jagged hole eaten out of one face; windows caved in like teeth. A woman’s coat still hung from an exposed wall — a mute testament to a life interrupted.

That morning, a Shahed-style drone had slammed into another residential block just before dawn, leaving a crater where a bedroom might have been. Cars outside were charred. By luck — no, by something more fragile — there were no deaths. “If it had tilted just a few degrees,” a neighbour murmured, “it would have been someone’s child.”

People, in all their resilient variety

In the back rooms of the damaged buildings, municipal workers were already boarding windows and clearing glass. The Ukrainian Red Cross moved through the site with thermoses and first-aid kits. A pensioner called Margarita Belkina invited us into the studio apartment she said she survives on for under €100 a month. Her floor was awash in glittering shards. She touched a pane of intact glass with something like affection and sorrow.

“The war made me a patriot,” she said in a voice that was both small and fierce. “I never thought I’d call myself that. But my home — my life — it’s here.” Margarita’s eyes were steady. She does not plan to leave.

In the city center, cafes and restaurants hum. Where two years ago tables stood empty, now a barista presses a steaming flat white, and young people scroll phones, exchange jokes, and smoke at doorways. Children shuffle off to school — not always in bright classrooms, but often underground, in converted metro stations and purpose-built shelters.

“We try to give them a childhood,” said Kateryna Chyryk, an English teacher who works with one of the city’s 21 underground schools. “Down there, there are no windows to watch the sky, no alarm bells in the distance. We teach grammar and resilience. They are children first.” Her hands stilled on a picture drawn by a pupil: a family, whole, under a yellow-blue sun.

Adaptations, small and large

Air-raid apps and instant alerts: millions of Ukrainians rely on apps that ping with the location of incoming threats and the nearest shelter.
Physical countermeasures: kilometres of anti-drone nets and new troop rotations through the city.
Community solidarity: volunteers, the Red Cross, and municipal teams working hours after strikes to board up homes and deliver heating and supplies.

Voices of doubt and the stubborn hope for peace

Not everyone here expects an end soon. Natalia Zubar, a war-crimes investigator and activist I met at her flat, was blunt. “I can’t see a Russia that decides to stop,” she said. “They have shown no appetite for compromise that recognises our sovereignty. We brace, prepare, and gather the evidence.” Her apartment smelled of coffee and paper; folders lay open like wings, evidence catalogued and numbered.

Yet beneath the hard realism, the city pulses with a different impulse: a hunger for ordinary joys. Renovated shopping centres — some still with their brand names dimmed — welcome shoppers who treat a renovated mall as both victory and necessity. On a cold afternoon, a group of teenagers skateboarded along a boulevard that had been shelled months earlier; their laughter cut through the air like a small, fierce bell.

So what does “normal” look like now?

Here, normal is a compound word: half-bruise, half-resume. It is the sound of boots and lullabies; municipal buses and the whir of anti-aircraft systems. Normal is a country that has learned to translate risk into routines, to weave grief into the fabric of everyday life without letting grief define every gesture.

But at what cost? Mental health clinics report rising demand. Teachers and aid workers speak of fatigue. The economy, while resilient, has been remade around scarcity, logistics, and the constant need for repair. When you walk through Kharkiv, the human calculus is visible: repair, then live; defend, then dream; resist, then rebuild.

Questions to carry with you

How long can societies normalize danger before the normalization itself becomes part of the problem? What does recovery look like for a city whose children learn algebra in a subway tunnel? And finally: when peace comes, how do you mend not just walls and windows, but the small violences that take root in everyday life?

Kharkiv’s answer, for now, is a kind of stubborn grace. People queue for coffee after an air-raid alarm. Pensioners patch curtains. Teachers map syllables underground. Volunteers string nets along the roads. The city continues to breathe.

As you read this, imagine standing at a window with a cup in your hands, watching a city you may never visit continue its slow, fierce work of holding on.

Leadership Shakeup in Jalisco Cartel: What Comes Next?

By

hanad

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March 1, 2026

Narco succession - What next for the Jalisco drug cartel? — Burned cars are seen in the parking lot of a Costco retail store in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

When a Kingpin Falls: The Midnight Shootout That Shook Mexico and the Long Shadow of the CJNG

There are moments when a single headline feels like a thunderclap—splitting the sky and leaving everyone beneath it blinking into a new world. Last weekend was one of those moments for Mexico. The man known to many only as “El Mencho”—Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes—the long-sought leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), died after a predawn confrontation with Mexican forces. What followed was not simply celebration or relief: it was a raw, combustible mix of fear, defiance and the gnawing question of what fills a power vacuum inside one of the planet’s most violent criminal empires.

The raid and its immediate aftermath

Authorities called the operation precise; intelligence officials said it was years in the making. U.S. and Mexican agencies exchanged tips and tracked movements that culminated in the confrontation. But the scene that unfolded across cities and highways in the hours after the announcement looked less like a neat victory and more like a warning.

Across at least 20 states, trucks were set aflame, highways were blockaded, public buildings were attacked and, in several places, the sickening crack of gunfire punctured the night. In Guadalajara and its suburbs, residents described roads choked with smoke and the sound of sirens becoming a grim, familiar rhythm.

“We woke up to a city on fire,” said Elena, a bakery owner in Zapopan, who asked that only her first name be used. “I saw a bus burning on the highway. We hid in the bakery until the army told us it was safer to go home. My children cried. I don’t know if we should leave.”

Organised chaos: a cartel’s violent reflex

Those post-raid actions were not random: they were the work of a criminal organisation exercising muscle, signaling that it remains a force capable of shaping daily life. The CJNG has evolved from a regional trafficking group into a sprawling transnational business—one that U.S. agencies estimate employs tens of thousands of members and operates in scores of countries.

Beyond drugs, the cartel has diversified into extortion, fuel theft, kidnapping, illegal logging, mining, migrant-smuggling and sophisticated financial fraud, U.S. commentators and intelligence assessments have argued. In areas where the state is thin or absent, these groups can act as shadow governments—collecting “taxes,” enforcing order, and brutally policing their own ranks.

“When you remove a leader, you don’t remove the organisation,” said Dr. Ana Rivera, a Mexico-based specialist in organized crime. “You disrupt networks, but you also provoke immediate attempts to test the group’s cohesion and seize land, routes and markets.”

Succession in the shadowlands

Cartels are not corporate boardrooms; they are dynasties, coalitions and coalitions within coalitions. In the CJNG’s case, analysts say El Mencho had been delegating much of the day-to-day command to a council of regional commanders—partly because of ill health—and that structure may blunt the immediate shock of his death. But it also lays the ground for internecine rivalry.

“There will be contenders,” said Carlos Méndez, a security analyst in Guadalajara. “Some are family, some are trusted lieutenants, others are ambitious regional bosses. The first weeks are when the map gets redrawn.”

When the Sinaloa Cartel’s top figures were removed from the board—first Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, then the aging Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada—the organisation splintered into factions that fought across the borderlands. The CJNG now faces the same challenge: keeping a sprawling empire together when the person who symbolised its rise is dead.

Life under fire: local voices

On a quiet street near a market in Guadalajara, a university student, Diego, described how life has a mechanical calm that hides tension. “You see people selling fruit, kids on bikes, but everyone knows the sound of danger here. When the cartel shows power, it is not just about drugs—it’s proving who runs the streets.”

A local priest, Father Miguel, has found his church filling with people seeking guidance or simply somewhere to feel safe. “People ask me whether they should stay or go. They don’t want to leave their homes, but they can’t explain the fear. It’s like standing under a sky that could fall any moment.”

Brutality and recruitment: a paradoxical growth

The CJNG’s reputation for brutality is not propaganda. Reports from investigative outlets and security think tanks have documented public executions, beheadings and other horrific acts used to intimidate rivals and control populations. There have even been accounts—shocking and difficult to verify fully—of ritualised violence used to bind recruits to the group.

Yet the cartel continues to recruit. Why? Because violence is only one part of a broader social contract they offer in certain communities: jobs (however brutal), a paycheque in places where formal work is scarce, quick justice, and sometimes a perverse form of social order. Combine that with the ceaseless demand for drugs—especially synthetic opioids whose ingredients and markets are global—and you have a corrosive economic engine.

Global connections and consequences

This story is not Mexico’s alone. It is a mirror to global consumption and geopolitics. The flow of fentanyl, methamphetamine and cocaine into the United States fuels the cartel’s revenue; international money laundering networks obscure profits; and the global demand for illicit goods continues to feed violent supply chains.

“Reducing violence in Mexico requires more than arrests,” noted Dr. Rivera. “It requires demand reduction policies, international financial cooperation, and serious investment in communities that have been hollowed out by decades of neglect.”

What happens now?

In the short term, expect more—perhaps unpredictable—violence, as rivals test boundaries and local commanders assert control. In the medium term, the cartels’ adaptability, diversification and financial networks mean that removing one leader seldom dismantles a network. At best, it redirects the fight. At worst, it draws new actors into a bloody scramble.

And what of the people living in the crossfire? They continue to bake, teach, worship and parent under conditions most can hardly explain to outsiders. They make choices every morning: go to work, close the shop, keep the children home. Those small acts of courage are, in their own way, a defiant refusal to be edged out by violence.

So, what do we, as distant observers and consumers of an interconnected world, do with this knowledge? Do we treat this as a law-and-order story broadcast in the dead of night, or as a reminder that our demands, policies and economic choices ripple far beyond our borders?

For the families in Guadalajara, the question is simpler and more urgent: how to sleep tonight without fear. For policymakers, it is more complex. And for the rest of us, the moment asks us to look up from headlines and ask—what kind of global community do we want to be, and how do we stop the next thunderclap?

Bill Clinton tells U.S. committee he committed no wrongdoing in Epstein case

By

hanad

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March 1, 2026

Bill Clinton denies wrongdoing to US committee on Epstein — In his opening statement, former US President Bill Clinton said 'I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong'

Chappaqua in the Crosshairs: Bill Clinton, Epstein Files, and a Town that Suddenly Knows the World’s Secrets

There are days when Chappaqua looks as if it could be the set of a small-town drama: maple trees sway over tidy porches, a barista knows your order before you say it, and dogs wander freely down Main Street. Then a congressional subpoena lands and the world’s cameras descend like storm clouds.

On the morning former President Bill Clinton sat for a closed-door deposition over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, Chappaqua hummed with an odd, nervous electricity. Reporters clustered at the corner deli, Secret Service cars idled by the town green, and residents peered out of windows as if trying to read history through the blinds.

What Was Said — And What Wasn’t

Clinton’s opening statement was terse and defiant: “I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” he told the congressional panel probing Epstein’s web of connections. He posted that brief declaration on social media, part admission, part rebuke — a mix of personal denial and political theater.

The Republican chair of the committee, James Comer, described the session as “very productive,” saying the former president “answered every question — or attempted to answer every question.” But other Republicans on the panel signaled unease privately, with Representative Nancy Mace alleging “inconsistencies” in the testimony without citing specifics.

Across the aisle, Democrats were quick to flip the script. “Let’s be real — we are talking to the wrong president,” Representative Suhas Subramanyam shot back, urging the committee to bring President Trump before the same bar. Hillary Clinton, who had already testified, urged investigators to question Mr. Trump “directly under oath” about frequent references to him in the newly released case files.

Both Clintons have asked for proceedings to be public — a call they framed as a plea for transparency and, not incidentally, as an appeal to a national audience. “No person is above the law,” Bill Clinton said in his opening remarks, “even presidents — especially presidents.”

Behind Closed Doors

The depositions are being held in private in the Clinton family’s hometown. The closed nature of the hearings has become a point of contention: Democrats contend the probe is being weaponized for partisan ends, while Republicans argue privacy is standard until facts are fully examined.

“What matters here is the truth,” said a legal scholar who has followed the files closely. “But the format — secret depositions, selective leaks — risks turning fact-finding into theater. The public deserves to understand how decisions were made about what investigations were opened, closed, or never pursued.”

The Evidence: Photographs, Flights, and Allegations

The files at the heart of these hearings are a mosaic of images and documents that have already altered rooflines of reputation. Among items that have circulated are photos showing former President Clinton in an Epstein-owned setting and others subtler but no less consequential: flight logs, visitor lists, and notes that place Epstein and a host of high-profile figures in the same orbit.

Clinton has acknowledged flying on Epstein’s private plane in the early 2000s, describing the trips as tied to humanitarian work connected to the Clinton Foundation. Committee Republicans have highlighted counts they say show Clinton flew with Epstein at least 27 times and that Epstein visited the White House multiple times during Clinton’s presidency — figures the former president and his allies dispute or contextualize.

Jeffrey Epstein was convicted in 2008 of soliciting prostitution from a minor; his death in a federal jail in 2019 remains a flashpoint in public discussion.
Ghislaine Maxwell, long accused of facilitating Epstein’s alleged abuse, was convicted in 2021 on charges related to sex trafficking.

“Being named in a file is not a crime,” an investigative reporter familiar with the documents told me. “But once names, photos, and logs are released, the court of public opinion moves fast. It’s not just about legal culpability — it’s about trust, networks, and how power operates.”

Chappaqua Speaks

At the corner coffee shop where locals swap weather tips and town gossip, the conversation was a mix of fatigue and curiosity.

“You see the vans and you think: we’re small, this shouldn’t happen here,” said Maria Lopez, who runs the shop and has lived in Chappaqua for three decades. “Then you realize the people being discussed live in a world where towns like ours are just places to land between flights. It changes the way you look at the porch where you sip your coffee.”

A neighbor who has stood by the same sycamore for 20 years added, “We’re proud, but it’s a strange kind of pride. Not about the attention — about the dignity of the place. You don’t want your home to be a pawn in someone else’s fight.”

Why This Matters Beyond One Family

This is not merely a story of two presidents and their acquaintances; it is a wider story about transparency, privilege, and how institutions confront allegations when powerful people are involved. The Epstein case, and now the release of documents, has prompted clients, colleagues, and critics to re-examine old relationships and consider what accountability looks like when money and influence are in play.

Across democracies, the question is similar: can public institutions investigate without being derailed by politics? Can the media report responsibly without becoming a megaphone? And can communities reconcile the contrast between private lives and public leadership?

What Experts Say

Legal analysts point out that being mentioned in records does not equal criminality. “The due process framework is still the backbone of our system,” said a professor of constitutional law. “But the reputational damage from mere association can be irrevocable, and that’s a civic issue as much as it is a legal one.”

Other observers frame the debate more broadly. “From #MeToo to institutional reviews of abuse, society is finally asking whether proximity to power should shield behavior,” a sociologist specializing in elites told me. “This inquiry touches on how cultures enable misconduct — and whether change can be structural instead of only symbolic.”

Questions for the Reader

What do you think is the right balance between privacy and public scrutiny for former leaders? When allegations involve networks rather than single actors, how should institutions investigate without descending into political theater? And perhaps most urgently: how do we ensure survivors’ voices are heard while courts and committees sort through the evidence?

Chappaqua will go back to its quiet rhythms once the cameras leave. But the questions raised in those quiet rooms, and the images that slipped into the public record, will not evaporate with the dust. They will linger in town conversations, in op-eds, and in hearings yet to come — and they will follow the nation as it negotiates how to reckon with power, culpability, and memory.

Iran oo si kumeel gaar ah ugu magacawday Alireza Arafi Hogaamiyaha Iran

By

Mahad

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March 1, 2026

Mar 01(Jowhar)-Alireza Arafi ayaa loo magacaabay inuu noqdo hogaamiyaha cusub ee kumeelgaarka ah ee Iraan,isagoo buuxin doono doorka hoggaamiyaha ugu sarreeya ilaa Golaha Khubarada ay dooranayaan hoggaamiye cusub.

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Explosions Rock Dubai and Doha Amid Iran’s Threat of Retaliation

By

hanad

-

March 1, 2026

Explosions in Dubai, Doha as Iran vows retaliation — A yacht sails past a plume of smoke rising from the port of Jebel Ali in Dubai

Morning Explosions: The Gulf Wakes to Smoke, Sirens and Uncertainty

For anyone who’s lived in the Gulf, the skyline is a kind of promise—sleek towers, glittering malls, and the certainty of sun. This morning that promise felt fragile. Fresh blasts echoed across Dubai, Doha and Manama before dawn, carving suddenly into a week already stretched thin by retaliatory strikes and political brinkmanship.

Thick black plumes rose behind Dubai’s silhouette; the palm-shaped islands and the sail of the Burj Al Arab, icons of leisure and finance, were reported with damage. Air-raid sirens wailed in Jerusalem after incoming missiles were identified. In scattered footage shared on social platforms, smoke licked into the blue above industrial districts in Doha and onto the facades of high-rises in Bahrain’s capital.

Numbers on the Ground

Officials in the region said this was no small flare-up. Iranian state sources claimed waves of missiles and drones had been launched at Emirati targets—137 missiles and 209 drones at the UAE, according to one defence ministry statement—while Qatar reported roughly 65 missiles and a dozen drones directed its way. Authorities in Doha said most interceptors worked as intended, but at least eight people there were injured, one critically. In Dubai, two residents were hurt by falling shrapnel after defensive systems intercepted drones near residential neighborhoods.

“We heard the hits and then the echoes,” said Aisha Al-Mansouri, a teacher in Dubai who spent the morning shepherding neighbors out of a glassed-in corridor. “Windows trembled. My heart still feels like it’s racing.”

Landmarks and Lives: Damage Beyond the Headlines

There’s a jolt when familiar places sustain damage. The Palm Jumeirah—an engineered island that doubled as a symbol of ambition and excess—showed burn marks in images online. Burj Al Arab, the luxury hotel whose image fills tourism brochures, was said to have suffered damage. Dubai International Airport, one of the world’s busiest hubs for international passengers, reported operations disrupted; flights were cancelled as airlines reassessed safety and rerouted. Kuwait’s international terminal also reported impacts.

At Abu Dhabi’s airport, authorities said an “incident” left at least one person dead and seven others wounded. Across the Emirates, fires and smoke climbed from industrial and residential sites. In Bahrain’s Manama, the home of the US Fifth Fleet, smoke rose from military areas; social media posts showed emergency crews working on scorched façades.

“You can patch a window,” said Karim Haddad, a logistics manager who works at a port near Manama, “but you can’t patch the calm. People who came here for work now ask whether they should stay.”

Voices of Power and People

On social media, Iran’s security chief Ali Larijani posted a terse vow in response to what Tehran called strikes that had targeted its leadership: “Yesterday Iran fired missiles at the United States and Israel, and they did hurt. Today we will hit them with a force that they have never experienced before,” he wrote. Whether as threat or rallying cry, it landed like a stone in already turbulent waters.

A US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that American and coalition assets were braced for further strikes and were working to protect civilians. “Our priority is to de-escalate and shield lives,” the official said. “We’re also tracking information to minimize harm to non-combatants.”

Meanwhile, ordinary people offered quieter, raw reactions. “My seven-year-old asked if the world had ended,” said Nadia, who lives on the third floor of an apartment block in Dubai Marina. “I didn’t have the words.”

Experts Weigh In

Regional security analysts say the strikes mark a dangerous widening of a conflict that had previously been contained to proxy battlegrounds and discreet operations.

“This is asymmetric warfare escalating into state-on-state exchanges,” said Dr. Laila Farouk, a Middle East security analyst based in London. “When major urban centers and civilian infrastructure are targeted—even when interceptors succeed—psychological and economic damage are profound and long-lasting.”

Oil-producing monarchies in the Gulf are global linchpins for energy markets and international trade. Even isolated hits can rattle supply perceptions and investor confidence. Markets are sensitive; shipping lanes, insurance rates, and long-term foreign investment could all feel the ripple effects.

Beyond the Gulf: Protests, Deaths, and a Region on Edge

The shock transmuted into fury in other capitals. In Karachi, Pakistan, a breach of the outer wall of the US consulate ended in bloodshed. Local authorities reported at least nine protesters shot dead and dozens injured after crowds clashed with security forces. Video from hospitals showed wounded people arriving by the dozens. “We were mourning a neighbour and then the street filled with smoke and shouts,” recounted Bilal Khan, who saw the clashes near the consulate.

In Baghdad, security forces fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of demonstrators outside the fortified Green Zone that houses the US Embassy; chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” rose in the air. Cities across Pakistan and parts of the wider region reported protests, some turning violent, and a UN office in the tourist-favorite northern area of Skardu was set ablaze.

Local Color: The Human Geography of Fear

Walk the markets of Doha or the alleys of Manama and you meet the Gulf’s mosaic: migrant workers from South Asia selling late-morning tea, Emirati families pushing strollers, Africans running late-night bakeries, Western expats commuting to offices. For many, these places have been bubble-wrapped from the region’s conflicts—luxury and security wrapped together. That bubble is now punctured.

“I moved here for the work and the safety,” said Samuel, a Kenyan electrician. “We send money back to our families. Today people are saying, should we go back? That’s not just fear—it’s livelihoods at stake.”

What Now? Questions That Won’t Fade

How do you negotiate peace when the instruments of war now include swarms of drones as well as traditional missiles? Who will step up as mediator? Oman—long a quiet interlocutor in Gulf politics and notably spared in the initial strikes—may have renewed significance, some analysts say.

And to the reader I ask: when skyscrapers and international terminals—the arteries of global mobility—are threatened, how should the world balance immediate de-escalation with longer-term diplomacy? Should economic interdependence—trade, travel, expatriate communities—be a shield for negotiation or a target that makes peace harder to achieve?

Closing: The Fragility of Ordinary Days

The morning’s blasts did more than rattle glass. They upended routines and exposed how thin the line is between normalcy and crisis. Flights cancelled, hospitals full, markets jittery—these are tangible effects. But so are the small human felts: the child who asked if the world had ended, the teacher comforting her students, the worker wondering whether to board a plane home.

For now, the region waits—waiting for returned silence, for a political route out of this escalation, for leaders to choose restraint over vindication. In the meantime, the Gulf’s skyline stands scarred but still standing, a reminder that life continues amid conflict—and that inside every report of missiles and smoke, there are ordinary people trying to make sense of it all.

Xildhibaanada labada aqal ku metela Puntland iyo Jubaland oo isaga baxay Magaalada Muqdisho

By

aden

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March 1, 2026

Mar 01(Jowhar)-Xildhibaanada kasoo gala Baarlamaanka Soomaaliya labada maamul ee Puntland iyo Jubaland ee aan ku jirin golaha Xukuumadda ayaa saaka ka baxay magaalada Muqdisho, waxay u jihaysteen magaalooyinka Kismaayo iyo Garoowe.

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Khamenei: The Iron-Fisted Revolutionary Steering Iran’s Islamic Republic

By

hanad

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March 1, 2026

Khamenei: ruthless revolutionary of Islamic republic — Ali Khamenei saw off a succession of crises throughout his rule (file image)

A Life Built of Shadow and Ceremony: The Enigmatic Figure at Iran’s Pinnacle

I have watched Iran from afar for decades and up close for years. Few figures have shaped its modern story as thoroughly as the man who has sat at the apex of its theocratic system since 1989: a cleric whose supply of rituals, edicts and sealed-off appearances made him at once omnipresent and impenetrable.

In recent days a flurry of dramatic online posts — including a message on Truth Social by Donald Trump that called him “one of the most evil people in history” and claimed his death — set off a storm of speculation. Reports also circulated that American and Israeli strikes had struck sites across Iran. At the time of writing, many of those claims remain unverified; in a world of instant messages, images and propaganda, certainty is hard-won.

From Seminary Halls to the Supreme Office

He rose from the seminaries of Mashhad and Qom, a product of the mid-20th-century clerical intelligentsia that blended religion and politics. He was long a figure in the revolution’s inner circle, repeatedly detained in the years of the Shah for anti-imperial agitation and later fighting on the frontline during the Iran-Iraq war.

When Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died in 1989, the Assembly of Experts chose his successor in a decision that surprised many. The man initially resisted the nomination — an image that was frozen in the national memory, an elder cleric murmuring, “I am opposed,” as the room pressed on — and yet history took him to the center of power, where he remained for more than three decades.

As supreme leader he became the ultimate arbiter: the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, the overseer of the judiciary, the guardian of the revolution’s ideology. He was, in many ways, the state’s constant while presidents came and went — reformers and hardliners alike — working with six elected presidents who sometimes tested, sometimes chafed at his limits.

Surviving Waves of Dissent

To watch the trajectory of Iran under his watch is to watch a country in perpetual tension. The late 1990s and the early 2000s saw student movements and reformist pushes. In 2009, disputed presidential elections provoked mass protests — the Green Movement — and the state’s response hardened.

More recently, in 2019 and again in 2022–23, streets across Iran were filled with voices chanting for change. The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement that crystallized after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini carried echoes of a deepening social struggle: many young Iranians pushing against strict dress codes and a system that tightly polices public life.

“We were not asking for revolution,” an organics seller in Tehran told me at a cramped market stall, nodding toward a group of customers wrapped against winter. “We were asking for a place to breathe. For dignity.”

Human rights organizations documented hundreds killed and thousands detained during waves of unrest; others put the figures higher. The protests did not topple the regime, but neither did they disappear into silence. They reshaped the politics of a country where a growing share of the population is under 30 and where social media — despite extensive filtering — is a powerful forum for dissent.

Security, Ceremonial Life and the Unseen

He lived like a man in a fortressed realm. Public appearances were tightly choreographed, never broadcast live and rarely announced in advance. He never set foot abroad after becoming supreme leader — a precedent harking back to Khomeini, who returned from exile with a triumphant procession in 1979. His last known foreign trip had been many years earlier, when he visited North Korea.

There were telltale signs of an older body. His right arm was often inert — a reminder of an assassination attempt in 1981 that left a permanent mark. He was a cleric who also acted as a political general: president in the 1980s after a succession of violent attacks within the revolutionary movement, then the ideological linchpin of a republic that blurred faith and statecraft.

“He has always been the axis,” said an exiled scholar of Iranian politics in Paris. “Even those who disagreed with him calibrated their language around his influence. That created stability of a sort, but it also concentrated the pressure: any fissure beneath the top becomes seismic quickly.”

The Family, the Backstage Power and the Question of Succession

Power in Iran has always been complex, a mosaic of institutions, networks and personalities. He had children, but only one — Mojtaba — ever reached public prominence, a figure that Western sanctions singled out in 2019 for his influential role behind the curtain. Family disputes spilled into public view at times: relatives who fled during the Iran-Iraq war, a sister whose children became critics abroad — reminders that private fissures often mirror political ones.

Who might succeed a supreme leader remains both a constitutional and a political question. The high clerical body, the Assembly of Experts, is technically charged with selecting and supervising the supreme leader. In practice, a successful transition requires the alignment of security organs, religious elites and political factions. Will the next era be more open? Or will the system reinvent itself around a new figure who doubles down on the old approach?

Lines on a Map, Lives in the Streets

Walk through Tehran’s grand bazaar at dawn and you hear saffron and cardamom, tea mugs clinking, merchants bargaining — the rhythms of daily life that persist under the political drama. Go to a university courtyard and you find younger Iranians speaking English, studying algorithms and migration patterns, planning futures that might take them abroad. Two Irans coexist: one rooted in revolutionary institutions and ritual; another impatient, connected and outward-looking.

“When I teach, the students ask about freedom, about whether they can shape their lives,” said a humanities professor at Tehran University. “They do not talk about ideology the way their parents did. They ask practical questions: Can I open a business? Can I travel? Can my daughter marry the person she loves?”

What This Moment Means — For Iran and the World

Whether the recent internet storm signals a definitive end to an era or simply another chapter in a long-running drama, the broader story matters. Iran is home to roughly 85–90 million people, a regional power with deep global entanglements — nuclear diplomacy, regional alliances, economic sanctions and a vast diaspora who watch events with bated breath.

So ask yourself: how do we understand change in an age when social networks can declare an event before governments confirm it? How do external powers influence internal dynamics without misreading the texture of local life? And, crucially, how do the men and women who live their days in Tehran, Shiraz, Mashhad or Isfahan imagine their future amid the reverberations of high politics?

In the end, this is not a story of one man alone. It is a story about a system and the millions who live under it — about resilience and repression, about longing and calculation. The rituals will continue, as will the bargaining of power. The markets will keep humming, poets will keep writing, and young people will keep trying to carve out space for their lives. That, perhaps, is the most vivid truth beneath any headline.

Masar oo lasii ogeysiiyay weerarka lagu qaaday Iiraan

By

aden

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March 1, 2026

Mar 01(Jowhar)-Wargeyska Haaretz ee laga leeyahay magaalada Tel Aviv ayaa daabacay warbixin sheegaysa in Israa’iil ay si rasmi ah Masar ugu sii sheegtay qorshe weerar oo lagu beegsanayo bartilmaameedyo ku yaalla gudaha Iran, 48 saacadood ka hor inta aan howlgalkaasi la fulin.

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Trump Warns Iran He Could Use Unprecedented Military Force Against Tehran

By

hanad

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March 1, 2026

Trump threatens Iran with force never been seen before

When Words Become Weapons: A Rallying Cry That Reverberates From Washington to Tehran

In a rollicking campaign rally under stage lights and flag-waving supporters, a single line can land like a thunderclap. “Force never been seen before,” the words snapped into the microphone and then into the global news cycle—an escalation not just of tone but of anxiety across cities and bazaars, embassies and oil markets.

Whether you call it theatrical posturing or a deliberate provocation, the effect is unmistakable. Markets twitch. Diplomats pick up phones. On the streets of Tehran, in the cafes of Basra, in the living rooms of American veterans, people try to translate rhetoric into real-world risk.

Echoes of a Fraught History

This moment did not arrive out of nowhere. U.S.–Iran relations have been frayed for more than four decades—revolution, hostage-taking, proxy conflicts, and sanctions are all in the ledger. Donald Trump’s 2018 withdrawal from the JCPOA, the landmark nuclear deal of 2015, was a turning point that reintroduced biting economic sanctions and drove Tehran to incrementally expand its nuclear activities.

Then, in January 2020, the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the powerful commander of Iran’s Quds Force, marked a new low. It made the personal and the geopolitical shockingly concrete, and it made the calculus of retaliation and restraint into a daily calculus for military planners.

“You can’t decouple words from the drums of past actions,” said Dr. Laila Mansouri, an Iranian foreign-policy analyst based in London. “For many in Iran, such language recalls a time when the U.S. used force in the region with few constraints. It hardens domestic political positions and gives hawks room to maneuver.”

On the Ground: Voices From the Region

Walk through Tehran’s Grand Bazaar and you hear more than politics: the clink of teapots, the bargaining for spices, the cadence of river-long history. Yet below that daily life is a palpable wariness.

“We have lived with sanctions for years,” said Reza, a carpet seller who asked that only his first name be used. “Every time a politician shouts about bombs, I worry not just about geopolitics but my nephew, my shop. Life is fragile here.”

In the port cities along the Gulf, fishermen talk less about slogans and more about the practical: traffic of tankers, coalition patrols, and the sudden rerouting of ships when diplomatic storms brew. In Basra, Iraq, where Iran’s influence is felt through political parties and trade, a taxi driver noted, “You hear these threats and you think of the last time foreign forces rearranged the map. People here want peace, not headlines.”

What Would “Force Never Seen Before” Actually Mean?

Rhetoric can slide quickly into speculation. Militarily, a truly unprecedented use of force by the U.S. in the region would be costly, dangerous, and diplomatically isolating. The United States still maintains a significant military footprint in the Middle East—tens of thousands of personnel across countries like Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq and Syria—and relies on a network of allies. But large-scale conventional operations come with steep human and political costs.

“Threatening unmatched force risks creating a self-fulfilling cycle,” warned Admiral Mark Ellison (ret.), a security analyst in Washington. “It drives adversaries to prepare asymmetrical responses—proxy attacks, cyber operations, and disruptions to global energy flows. None of that is hypothetical.”

Indeed, Iran and its regional partners have years of experience in asymmetrical warfare: harassing shipping, deploying drones and missiles through allied militias, and using cyber tools. These tactics have already rattled global oil markets periodically; remember the tanker incidents in 2019 and the strikes on energy infrastructure in recent years.

Economics, Energy and a Fragile Global Balance

Beyond the immediate military calculus lies the economic fallout. Iran, with a population of roughly 86 million, remains a key player in a volatile energy geography. Although sanctions curtailed Tehran’s oil exports for years, the country still occupies a strategic position along the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil shipments pass.

“Markets are nervous when leadership in major powers talks about sweeping force,” said Sofia Alvarez, an energy economist in Madrid. “A risk premium shows up in oil prices, insurance costs for shipping rise, and global supply chains—still tentatively recovering from the pandemic—feel the squeeze.”

Diplomacy on a Knife’s Edge

Diplomatic channels—both official and backchannel—now shoulder an outsized burden. European capitals and partners in the Middle East typically urge de-escalation, preferring negotiation over escalation. From Tokyo to Brussels, leaders watch for signs that rhetoric might harden into action.

“Words that aim to intimidate can erode the space for diplomacy,” said Anna Khatami, a former UN diplomat who worked on Iran sanctions. “What we need is a return to pragmatic engagement—de-escalation, verifiable constraints, and clear red lines that preserve lives.”

How Do Ordinary People Cope?

When global leaders trade bluster, it’s ordinary lives that bear the consequences. In Tehran, a teacher rehearses the same lesson plans she has for years; in Erbil, a Kurdish father adds extra minutes to the family’s emergency talks. Anxiety becomes everyday choreography—what to buy, where to shelter, when to speak openly.

“We’ve learned to keep going,” said Mariam, a nurse in Shiraz. “We patch wounds on a daily basis—literal and figurative. But every time someone talks about new wars, it feels like we’re skating on thin ice.”

What Do You Think?

As readers around the world, we must ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions: When do words constitute a strategy, and when are they a cheap play for attention? How much trust should we place in leaders who promise decisive action without clear plans? And finally, how do we balance legitimate security concerns with the immense human cost of armed conflict?

Rhetoric has the power to mobilize, to terrify, to galvanize. But it also reveals something about the values behind policy: restraint or recklessness; consultation or unilateralism. The stakes are high—not just for policymakers and generals, but for the millions whose daily lives depend on fragile peace.

Closing Note

In the coming days and weeks, the world will watch how this latest flash of incendiary language evolves—whether it fizzles into campaign bravado or hardens into policy. In the meantime, people on both sides of this standoff will continue to brew tea, tend shops, teach children, and hope that common sense will outpace the rhetoric. Let’s keep asking: what kind of world do we want to make, and who will pay the price if we choose force over conversation?